


i still get jealous of your old boyfriends

by savedby



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11322276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savedby/pseuds/savedby
Summary: “They were on My Super Sweet 16,” Auston says, dryly. Mitch stops in the middle of the street.“Oh, that used to be Davo’s favorite show!” he says and Auston chokes.“Are you telling me that Connor McDavid’s favorite show is My Super Sweet 16?” he asks incredulously. Mitch grins at him.“Oh, no,” he says and Auston lets out a sigh of relief, “it used to be his favorite show. I think his favorite right now is Extreme Couponing.”





	i still get jealous of your old boyfriends

**Author's Note:**

> Biggest thanks to Dell for looking this over, and for inspiring it by reccing me the the Modern Lovers.
> 
> Relatedly, the title is from 'Hospital' by Modern Lovers

 

 

The heat hits Mitch like a sucker punch the moment he steps out of the airport. He starts sweating almost immediately.

 

In contrast, Auston seems as fresh as a daisy next to him, craning his head over the crowd, trying to spot his dad. He catches sight of Mitch’s face and snorts.

 

“I told you it was going to be hot,” he says, and Mitch grimaces at him, tries to surreptitiously wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. It only makes it worse. It’d been spring in Toronto, and just chilly enough to require long sleeves. He’s pretty sure he could strip naked in the middle of Phoenix and he still wouldn’t feel any cooler.

 

“I didn’t expect to be holidaying in an oven,” Mitch says, right as Auston’s dad Brian rounds the corner and almost smacks into them. 

 

It’s good to see him. He hugs Auston first, and then Mitch, like he hasn’t seen them in weeks instead of just two days ago. Mitch likes him. Likes how demonstrative he is in his affection, likes how much warmer he is in comparison to his own dad. 

 

“I brought a water bottle for you,” Brian says to him, sympathetically, “I figured Auston wouldn’t warn you about it.”

 

“Hey!” Auston says, but takes Mitch’s suitcase from his hands after Brian takes his. “I did warn him. He just wouldn’t listen to me about the jacket.”

 

“He didn’t tell me his home state was in the fiery pits of hell!” Mitch says, making Brian laugh, as he leads them to his car.

 

“We’ve played in Arizona before,” Auston points out. The reflection of the sun off the cars is blinding, and Mitch’s sunglasses are packed away somewhere in his suitcase. 

 

“Not in the summer!”

 

“It’s not summer yet,” Auston says, dryly, “it gets hotter.”

 

Spotting his predicament, Auston slows down, and Mitch takes his hand gratefully, lets himself be led through the maze of cars. Auston carries his sunglasses everywhere, even in winter. It gets him chirped all the time, but Mitch can see where the habit comes from now.

 

His hand is sweaty, but so is Auston’s, which makes it alright. Mitch catches Brian looking at their joined hands, but he doesn’t say anything about it, just chatters on about how high the temperatures have been. Mitch tightens his grip.

 

The air conditioning in the car is a blessing and Mitch lets out a long groan that makes Auston and Brian laugh. He sprawls across the back seat, puts on his seatbelt only when Brian reminds him to.

 

Mitch watches the buildings as they pass them by, blinking at the sun reflecting off the storefronts. It’s approaching noon and there’s hardly anyone outside on the sidewalks, probably avoiding the heat. His shirt is sticking to his body and he suddenly feels a little sleepy, takes a gulp from his water bottle, listening idly as Auston and Brian talk in the front seat.

 

“-and she says that Justin is in town,” he catches Brian say. It’s a good thing, Mitch is looking directly at Auston as he says it, because otherwise he would have missed the change in his expression.

 

“Oh, yeah?” Auston says, and his voice sounds casual, but he looks away, out the window. He’s blushing. “I’ll have to call, see if he wants to hang out.”

 

And Mitch doesn’t know who this Justin is, but he suddenly very much hopes he’s busy for the rest of the week.

 

It’s irrational, but. Mitch has had a hard time shaking off his jealousy about Auston hanging out with other people recently. He knows exactly what it means, and he doesn’t want to think about it.

 

The ride isn’t long, maybe just half an hour, before they enter Auston’s neighbourhood. Auston points out a gap between houses to him and Mitch dutifully follows his finger.

 

“There’s a playground behind that tree,” Auston says, “we used to play roller hockey there. Or, well,” he smiles ruefully, “I played and had the neighbourhood kids try to chase the ball off me.”

 

“Is that how you met Justin?” Mitch blurts out, and then immediately bites the inside of his cheek. Auston actually turns around to look at him, frowning. Mitch tries to look innocently curious instead of a burning jealousy monster. He probably mostly succeeds. 

 

“No,” Auston says, slowly, “I met Justin playing hockey.”

 

Mitch swallows around a dry throat and nods. “Cool,” he offers, which seems to appease Auston.

 

Mitch squints at the tree and tries to imagine it. Auston, so much smaller than he is now, in his roller hockey gear, trying to keep the ball away from a group of over-enthusiastic kids. It’s a sweet image. Maybe Auston’s mom will have some baby pictures she can show Mitch.

 

Auston’s mom greets them with lunch and a hug when they come in. Ema hugs differently than Brian does. She squeezes more carefully, but her hugs linger, and Mitch instinctively hugs her back.

 

She hugs like Auston does, that’s why it feels so familiar.

 

They eat and then he and Auston spend most of the afternoon, tucked together on the couch in the living room, watching everything that isn’t hockey, and Mitch doesn’t even really feel guilty about it. They might not have made playoffs, but it was still a tough season.

 

At some point, Auston starts muttering about the air condition being on too cold, and he sticks his feet under Mitch’s thigh. Mitch rolls his eyes and drags a blanket over both of them. He’s a little too hot again, but Auston seems pleased, so he can deal.

 

“Hey,” Auston says, sometime in the late afternoon, when Mitch is half asleep to a Lord of the Rings marathon, “do you want to go to a party with me tonight? Meet some of my friends?”

 

“Sure.” Mitch would honestly prefer to spend the evening right here on the couch, napping, surrounded by Auston’s smell and his warmth, but thinking things like that is really fucking clingy. Besides, Auston’s met all of Mitch’s friends and he’s never complained about it, even when Dylan started to drunkenly cuddle him. 

 

That’s how he finds himself in front of the big mirror in Auston’s room, trying on one of his shirts. 

 

“It’s a little big on you,” Auston says, which is an understatement, since Mitch is practically swimming in his button up. He doesn’t say it looks bad though.

 

Mitch has his own clothes, but he’s having fun trying on Auston’s while Breyana critiques, perched on Auston’s bed.

 

“Those jeans make your butt look big,” she tells Auston, when he comes out with a pair of skinny jeans that are practically bursting at the seams. They do, and Mitch really doesn’t mind, but it might be too much for the general public.

 

“You look like a rentboy,” she tells Mitch when he comes out in a mesh tank top and short shorts. 

 

“But it’s so hot out there!” he protests, and she snorts. She was immediately promoted to the top of Mitch’s list of favorite members of the Matthews family when she came home from school and immediately started chirping Auston about his haircut.

 

Finally, they come up with outfits that she approves of and they head out. 

 

Auston drives, which is familiar, even if the car and the streets aren’t.

 

Mitch plays the Auston Matthews Rap, just to make him smile. It works, and Mitch looks at him from the corner of his eye, until they hit the right part of the city and he’s got to look for a parking space.

 

They walk the rest of the way. It really has cooled down, and the streets are full of young people, dressed up for a night out.

 

“They’re pretty rich,” Auston says out of the blue, “the people whose party we’re going to.” He sounds apologetic, which is hilarious, because they’ve both collected all their rookie year bonuses. They’re hardly poor.

 

“Okay,” Mitch says, slowly, “how rich are we talking?”

 

“They were on My Super Sweet 16,” Auston says, dryly. Mitch stops in the middle of the street.

 

“Oh, that used to be Davo’s favorite show!” he says and Auston chokes.

 

“Are you telling me that Connor McDavid’s favorite show is My Super Sweet 16?” he asks incredulously. Mitch grins at him.

 

“Oh, no,” he says and Auston lets out a sigh of relief, “it used to be his favorite show. I think his favorite right now is Extreme Couponing.”

 

Auston groans and Mitch laughs. Telling people that Davo is a weirdo is probably his favorite pastime.

 

“Anyway,” Mitch continues, “as long as there’s free alcohol, I’m fine with anything.”

 

“About that,” Auston says, “we’re in the United States, remember?”

 

Mitch’s scream echoes from the neighboring building.

 

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

 

“No alcohol, Auston!”

 

“It’s not like you drink that much in the first place. Besides, there’ll be alcohol, just illegally.”

 

The party, when they find it, is much classier than Mitch expected it to be. Instead of giant stuffed pink unicorns, there’s more of a hipster vibe happening and Auston fits right in. Mitch can fake it enough to not feel out of place.

 

He does take a selfie with the birthday girl though, just to send it to Davo and freak him out. 

 

Mitch meets some of Auston’s friends. They’re all tanned and gorgeous, and only some of them are former hockey players, but it’s enough for Mitch to be able to seamlessly start a conversation. He’s gotten better at that in recent years, and Auston’s friends are nice and make it easier on him.

 

He and Auston are midway to the snack table, when someone taps Auston on the shoulder.

 

“Oh! Hi, Justin,” Auston says, and Mitch swings around so fast he almost gives himself whiplash.

 

Justin is tall and almost unfairly handsome, with the pouty lips of a fifties movie star. He also looks at Auston like he hung the moon. 

 

Mitch is sadly familiar with that expression. 

 

“You’ve gone blonde,” Auston says, and reaches out to tug on an artfully stray blonde curl, which is Mitch’s breaking point. He throws out an excuse and makes a beeline for the alcohol table and then the crowded dancefloor. 

 

He dances with a few people, ends up with a girl, their bodies pushed together by the crowd. She’s tall, but her hips fit nicely under his palms, her dark skin shining in the lights of the dancefloor. She leaves glitter where she touches him, and he leans in to kiss her, then catches a flash of blonde in the corner of his eye, pulls back with a muttered apology. 

 

There’s a balcony off to the side, and he grabs another beer before heading out the glass double doors. 

 

It’s cooled off considerably, and he shivers, pulls his jacket tighter around him. It’s one of Auston’s, so it’s big on his frame, and it smells like his laundry detergent and a hint of his cologne. It hurts a little, but Mitch buries his nose in the upturned collar anyway.

 

The view off the balcony isn’t anything spectacular considering the apartment must be pretty expensive. There’s at least two dumpsters in Mitch’s line of sight and the rest of it is blocked off by the brick wall of the building opposite. 

 

He sees a man smoking a cigarette on one of the balconies. The cigarette butt glows orange, and the man notices Mitch staring, offers him a grin and a mocking wave, before stubbing out his cigarette and heading inside.

 

Mitch snorts to himself and takes another sip of his beer. If Auston were there, he’d probably go off on a tangent about how smoking is bad for you, and like, is killing the pineapple population,  or whatever it says in those health journals that he likes to read. 

 

But Auston is inside, having fun with Justin, and Mitch is out here, trying not to replay the image of his fingers touching Justin’s hair over and over in his head.

 

The beer bottle is empty when Mitch tries to take another swing, so he resorts to rolling it in his palms in a nervous motion. He feels unsettled and anxious, and he wishes he never left Toronto at all. That way, he wouldn’t have had to confront his feelings for Auston at all, and with the summer in between, maybe he would have found someone else and gotten over it.

 

Instead, he’d said yes, desperate to collect more pieces of Auston to hoard for himself.

 

“Hey, what are you doing out here? Party’s inside.” Mitch turns, and there’s Auston sticking his head through the sliding doors. He’s got no visible marks on him and Mitch is disgusted at himself for even searching for them.

 

“I needed some air,” Mitch says, proud of how casual his voice sounds.

 

“Are you tired? Should we head back?” Auston asks, frowning.

 

“No, it’s fine,” Mitch shrugs, “you go have fun with your friends. I could call an uber or something? Your mom can probably let me in.”

 

“It’s okay, we can-”

 

“You don’t have to go!”

 

Mitch bites his lip, immediately regretting his outburst. Auston’s frown changes to concern, and Mitch can’t look at him anymore, has to turn around to watch the street again. Cigarette guy is outside again and he’s brought a friend. All Mitch can see is the orange circles of their cigarettes.

 

“Mitch,” Auston says, in that tone that’ll get him the C one day, “we’re going.”

 

Mitch has been conditioned to respond to that tone, so he just nods, a little lost, and follows Auston off the balcony. He remembers to wave at the smokers on the balcony, but he doesn’t get to see if he gets a wave in return. Auston shots him a funny look, but Mitch just shrugs, because it’s hard to explain.

 

Auston grabs onto the sleeve of Mitch’s jacket so they don’t get lost in the crowd that seems to have multiplied since Mitch had gone outside. His knuckles occasionally brush against Mitch’s stomach as people jostle them, and the feeling sends shocks of heat to the pit of his stomach.

 

They’re quiet, in the car. Auston doesn’t turn on the radio and Mitch silently prays they don’t play some sappy love song. 

 

He watches Auston’s profile in the reflection of his window - the slope of his nose, his cheeks still rounded by puppy fat, the curve of his lips. 

 

Objectively, he isn’t even that good-looking. Honestly, Mitch has kissed hotter people, dated hotter people, and none of them have ever made him feel this needy.

 

He wants to be around Auston all the time. Wants to hear him laugh, wants to hear him say Mitch’s name.

 

“Mitch?” Auston says. “We’re here.”

 

Mitch blinks out of his reverie to Auston looking at him expectantly, seat belt unbuckled. Auston’s house is quiet and unlit through the car window.

 

“Sorry,” he says, belatedly and Auston makes a frustrated noise under his breath.

 

“What is up with you?” he asks and Mitch just shakes his head, unbuckles and gets out of the car.

 

He does end up having to wait for Auston to catch up to let them inside the house, so as an avoidance technique it’s not the best.

 

Auston doesn’t say anything as they go in through the quiet living room and up the stairs. Mitch is halfway to making up an excuse about having to go to the bathroom just to delay the inevitable.

 

Inevitable is the foldout bed, made up for him, in Auston’s room. Inevitable is Auston’s concerned expression as he sits down on his bed and stares up at Mitch.

 

Mitch stares back helplessly, stuck in between wanting to kiss him and high sticking him in the face. Both of those have gotten people to leave him alone before.

 

“What’s wrong?” Auston asks, in his softest voice, the one he only gets around puppies and small children.

 

Mitch sits down next to him, at a careful distance, lacing his fingers in his lap. He must take too long to answer.

 

“Hey, you’re scaring me,” Auston says and Mitch shakes his head to clear it. “Is it your mono again?”

 

“No,” Mitch says, hates how his voice is a little shaky, “it’s okay. I’m sorry.”

 

“What are you sorry for?”

 

“Making you leave the party early. You and Justin seemed like you were having fun.”

 

Auston lets out a frustrated noise. “Why do you keep bringing him up?”

 

“It’s just,” Mitch shrugs helplessly, “you like him.”

 

“Oh,” Auston frowns, “is this like a no homo kind of thing?”

 

Mitch whips around to stare at him. “What? No, of course not! I’m very pro-homo!” Auston raises an eyebrow. “I’m bi,” Mitch finishes lamely.

 

“Me too,” Auston says.

 

“Oh, right,” Mitch says, stupidly, “I mean wait. Really?”

 

“Yeah. Is that why you were weird? You thought I’d react badly?” Auston frowns. “Do I need to call Mo so he can give you the ‘'all Maple Leafs are equal’ speech again?”

 

“No!” Mitch says, trying to get his thoughts in some kind of order.

 

“Then what?” Auston asks.

 

“I like you,” Mitch blurts out.

 

“Like-”

 

“I like you. Like Babs loves passing exercises. Like Mo loves Gards but won’t admit it. Like Leo loves that cake from the pastry shop near the rink-”

 

“Leo really loves that cake,” Auston says, dumbfoundedly.

 

“I like you like Zach likes chocolate. I like you like-”

 

Auston reaches out to cup Mitch’s cheek, cutting him off. He runs his thumb over Mitch’s cheekbone and damn him, that’s Mitch’s move! He stole that!

 

Mitch still falls for it though.

 

“...”

 

“...so are you going to kiss me or are you going to just stare at my lips creepily for an hour.”

 

“Oh, sorry, yeah-”

 

*

 

“So, when you said that you liked me like Leo liked cake does that mean you want to eat me?”

 

“...one day I’m going to record you saying shit like this and then I’ll be sending it to all the media outlets in Toronto so they’ll stop with the ‘'he’s so quiet and mysterious’ narrative they’ve got going on.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who follow Auston's life more closely (I wouldn't say stalkerish exactly but...) might recognize the inspiration for Justin as JT Barnett, Auston's friend (aka his hot older boyfriend). I highly recommend his instagram. It never fails to improve my day.
> 
> Also, you know that Davo deadass watches Extreme Couponing, because he's actually a suburban housewife on the inside.


End file.
